This invention relates to programmable digital hearing aids, and is more specifically concerned with an improved arrangement and technique to permit the audiologist, dispenser or other clinician to effect changes to the hearing aid programs for a patient's hearing aid(s). In particular, the invention is concerned with a technique and arrangement that permits the patient to contact the clinician, and allow the clinician, who is located at a central clinic facility, to analyze the performance of the patient's hearing aids while the patient is at a location remote from the clinic facility, and to adjust the patient's hearing aid program(s) to improve their performance and to help address any problems or objections that the patient may be having. This is carried out in real time, and with interaction between the patient and the clinician. The clinician may be an hearing aid dispenser, an audiologist, a technician or other hearing aid practitioner.
Modern hearing aids or hearing instruments can be provided for patients who may have hearing losses that may be moderate or severe and may vary widely over the various bands of audio frequencies. Typically, digital hearing aids are dispensed for most patients, because they can be loaded with a digital program to address the specific hearing loss for the ear in which the hearing aid is worn, and because the audiologist or clinician can very easily adjust the performance of the device by making changes to the hearing aid program. Initially, the hearing aid or aids for a given patient are programmed in accordance with the patient's hearing loss profile for each ear. These profiles tend to approximate the actual hearing loss, as the hearing tests employed depend on the patient's response, and cannot be totally objective. After an initial fitting, the patient is expected to return to have the hearing aids adjusted to optimize their performance. The hearing patient may also need to have periodic adjustments made, reflecting changes in the patient's hearing loss and also reflecting changes in the patient's environment.
Modern digital programmable hearing aids can have rather sophisticated hearing correction programs, which may include feedback blocking, speech and noise management, wind noise cancellation, transient noise suppression, directionality, and adaptive environmental sound management, as well as programmed gain factors for each frequency band and dynamic range compression for each frequency band. On top of these features, modern digital programmable hearing aids typically have a data logging feature to track and record the performance history of the hearing aid. Modern hearing aids also have multiple programmability for use in several different environments.
A recent improvement for hearing aids of this type has been the incorporation of Bluetooth™ and/or other wireless technologies, which allows for short-range, low-power two-way radio communication with Bluetooth or Bluetooth-enabled devices. This was intended to permit the hearing aid wearer to communicate, via the hearing aids, with a Bluetooth-enabled cell phone, or to listen to a digital audio device (e.g., an MP3 player) wirelessly through the hearing aids. In effect the hearing aid gives the wearer a more pleasing sound than would be experienced via standard audio phones from the cell phone or from the audio MP3 player.
The same Bluetooth™ technology (or other wireless technology) can also allow the audiologist or clinician to download wirelessly the data stored in the patient's hearing aid or hearing aids, i.e., hearing aid program, product identification codes, and logging data concerning aid performance. The clinician can make adjustments to the patient's hearing aid program and upload that wirelessly to the hearing aid. However, because this technology involves low power and short distance communication only, and it requires the clinician and patient to be in proximity to one another for any scheduled session.
For most persons with hearing loss and who may need adjustment to their hearing instruments, it is inconvenient to make an appointment with the hearing specialist and to travel to the specialist's office. For many persons, the audiologist or hearing aid dispenser is not located nearby, and round trip travel of several hours can be involved. This can be a discouragement to persons, whose hearing aids are performing at less than optimal level, from obtaining help. Also, when the hearing patient is at the audiologist's office, he or she is in a location different from the place where the patient has experienced specific difficulties in hearing, and it may be difficult for the practitioner to duplicate, in the office, the same conditions that seem to cause the patient's hearing difficulties. Moreover, any visit to the clinician's office would have to take place during normal business office hours, which may not be a convenient time for the individual patient. For these reasons, small adjustments to the patient's hearing aid are not made when they should be made, and the patient's hearing problems continue.
A system for customizing a hearing aid device is described in published application US 2009/0154741 A1, where the hearing patient is at some distance of the clinician or device dispenser. The system downloads logged data from the patient's hearing aids and uses an adaptive fitting procedure using logged data for customizing the patient's hearing aids. This system depends on the patient inputting data, and making selections, and also employs a generic algorithm for fitting the hearing aid, with no provision for input from, or to, an audiology clinician. There is also no provision for real-time feedback from the patient about hearing aid performance while he or she is wearing the hearing aids.
Other systems for remote adjustment of hearing aids have required the patient to select and download pre-determined program settings, without benefit of consultation with a hearing aid clinician in the process.